Project Gutenberg's The World War and What was Behind It, by Louis P. Benezet

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Title: The World War and What was Behind It
The Story of the Map of Europe

Author: Louis P. Benezet

Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11200]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE WORLD WAR AND WHAT WAS BEHIND IT

or

THE STORY OF THE MAP OF EUROPE

By

L. P. BENEZET

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, EVANSVILLE, INDIANA

[Illustration: The Peace Palace at the Hague]

PREFACE

This little volume is the result of the interest shown by pupils,
teachers, and the general public in a series of talks on the causes of
the great European war which were given by the author in the fall of
1914. The audiences were widely different in character. They included
pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, students in high
school and normal school, teachers in the public schools, an
association of business men, and a convention of boards of education.
In every case, the same sentiment was voiced: "If there were only some
book which would give us these facts in simple language and illustrate
them by maps and charts as you have done!" After searching the market
for a book of this sort without success, the author determined to put
the subject of his talks into manuscript form. It has been his aim to
write in a style which is well within the comprehension of the
children in the upper grades and yet is not too juvenile for adult
readers. The book deals with the remarkable sequence of events in
Europe which made the great war inevitable. Facts are revealed which,
so far as the author knows, have not been published in any history to
date; facts which had the strongest possible bearing on the outbreak
of the war. The average American, whether child or adult, has little
conception of conditions in Europe. In America all races mix. The
children of the Polish Jew mingle with those of the Sicilian, and in
the second generations both peoples have become Americans. Bohemians
intermarry with Irish, Scotch with Norwegians. In Europe, on the other
hand, Czech and